Trans people share their feelings of loss at not experiencing childhood as their true gender
People march at London’s first-ever Trans Pride, 2019. (WIktor Szymanowicz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Trans people are sharing their feelings of loss at having come out later in life in a moving thread on Twitter.
“How many trans people, especially those who started transition as adults (doubly so if older than I), feel a lost youth? Missed on a childhood that matched with your real gender, wish you didn’t had to be your agab [assigned gender at birth]?” asked Brittany, a non-binary trans femme.
Since asking the question on 14 October, her post has been liked over 900 times.
I pretty much missed out on my teenage years, my twenties, and almost all of my thirties. It hurts. That cover-all numbness used to protect me against this hurt, but once HRT lifted it, I went through quite a grieving process.
Writing this tweet still fills my eyes with tears.
— Riley Faelan (@RileyFaelan) October 15, 2019
“I started transition when I was 21, so a young adult, but even I feel a sense of lost youth… well more so wasted than lost. I had my youth, but I was depressed and fucked up and I wasn’t being myself,” said Catherine Bernard, a 26-year-old trans woman.
Many of the Twitter users replying had come out as trans or transitioned later in life – in their 40s, 50s, or 60s.
??♀️ (60yo)
Without question.
Now, I am thankful every minute for at last being ME♥️???♀️
— Freyja Liv (@FreyjaLiv) October 14, 2019
“I transitioned at 41 and I don’t really feel a sense of a lost *childhood* so much as a lost young adulthood! I’d do anything to go back and live as a young woman in her twenties!” said one Twitter user.
Others said that transitioning later was part and parcel of a tough life.
“I transitioned in my 50s,” said Lesley the Leither. “A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, raped in my teens. I’ve had cancer. I had my life. It was tough. I have children. They’re amazing. I am an addict / alcoholic in recovery. I’m pissed off that Hearts weren’t champions in ‘65 and and ‘86. That’s it.”
yes. Esp. painful for me as I’m older, I was pretty clear who I was, but coming out was freaking impossible in 1970’s.
I actually tried in 1972, age 14.
The only way to defend ‘watchful waiting’ is to claim there’s no such thing as human development.
I’ll never get over the hurt
— AnneOgborn#WontBeErased (@AnnieTheObscure) October 15, 2019
Another Twitter user added: “I’ve been dressing for 50+ years and only recently really accepted it. Yes, I wish I could relive those years.”
Non-binary people also replied to the tweet. One non-binary person wrote: “I really don’t even know what a non-binary teenhood would have been. It’s hard to answer the tweet because of that, but I think the enormous amount of grief I feel in response to the question is probably telling.”
we don’t really talk about it, do we?
how difficult it was to *BE* a teenage boy/girl when you fucking weren’tI was a teenage unknown and I had to be a teenage boy. Do people know how *DIFFICULT* that was? How exhausting? Can they understand?
I wish cis people could
— Spooky Untitled Lesbian Game (@QuinntoBean) October 12, 2019
